1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a finishing profile for a floor covering, as well as to a method for manufacturing such finishing profile.
2. Related Art
More particularly, the invention relates to finishing profiles that can be employed there, where an edge of a floor covering must be finished. Herein, this relates to any type of floor covering, however, preferably the finishing profiles of the invention are applied when finishing a floatingly installed floor covering, such as, for example, when finishing gluelessly installed flooring of the type known, for example, from the WO 97/47834, namely, laminate panels, prefabricated parquet, veneer parquet or solid parquet.
Profiles that allow finishing an edge of such floor covering are known from the state of the art, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 6,745,534. Usually, such finishing profile is performed as a decorative strip, whether or not consisting of several parts, or the like, which can be pressed on in a rail-shaped profile or holder by means of an attachment portion.
Currently, a difference is made between some three kinds of possible finishing modes and associated finishing profiles.
According to a first possibility, the finishing profile relates to a so-called expansion profile, which usually is applied for finishing a joint, said joint being intended, for example, as an expansion joint, between two floor coverings of an equal or similar type.
According to a second possibility, the finishing profile relates to a so-called transition profile, which usually is applied for forming a transition from one type of floor covering to another type of floor covering, such as, for example, a transition from a laminate flooring to a carpet or a transition between laminate floorings of different thicknesses.
According to a third possibility, the finishing profile relates to a so-called end profile, which usually is used for finishing an edge of a floor covering next to a wall. Generally, in the above by “floor coverings of another type”, floor coverings are meant having a different thickness.
In the meantime, amongst others, from WO 01/20101 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,860,074, finishing profiles are known that allow finishing several kinds of transitions. To this aim, according to these documents, they have to be composed from several portions to form different configurations, depending on the required kind of finishing.
In the Belgian patent application BE 2005/0015, filed by the present applicant, finishing profiles have already been described, which allow to finish several kinds of transitions. According to BE 2005/0015, different configurations of one and the same finishing profile may be obtained by separating one or more portions from the finishing profile. Herein, the separation may take place, amongst others, by cutting through a layer-shaped covering provided on the finishing profile. However, the inventor of the present invention has found that in certain cases, it remains difficult to form a well-cut edge at the layer-shaped covering, for example, when not using a knife designed in particular to this aim. Also with embodiments in which is intended to break off one or more portions of the finishing profile instead of cutting them off, wherein the break line is realized also through the layer-shaped covering, the disadvantage is created that that the risk is rather high that the layer-shaped covering is damaged at the broken-off edge or is delineated in a rather un-esthetic manner.